Prevalence of food-borne pathogens, emergence of drug-resistant bacteria and viruses, and threat of bioterrorism are pressing concerns. Early detection of pathogens prevents outbreaks.
Traditionally, microbial detection is performed using microbiological techniques[1]. Although this approach is highly accurate, it can take days (even weeks) to arrive at a definitive conclusion. Both antibody and PCR based methods represent significant advances because such tests offer high specificity and sensitivity and require significantly reduced detection times[2]. However, these methods usually require multiple analytical steps and specialized equipment. There is a significant need for both simple methods that can achieve rapid detection of known pathogens and new platforms that can be quickly put in place to create assays for a new pathogen in an unanticipated outbreak.
DNAzymes, a special class of functional nucleic acids[3], are artificial single-stranded DNA molecules with a catalytic ability[4]. They can be isolated from a random-sequence DNA pool by the technique of “in vitro selection”[5] and have been explored as unique molecular tools for an increasing number of applications[4,6].